Will Self

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Best foot forward

July 8, 2008

For years now pressure groups such as Living Streets and the Ramblers Association have been urging the Government to produce a co-ordinated national walking strategy. With almost geological slowness a “discussion paper” has been circulated, limping from not very interested party to indifferent one. In the meantime, local authorities have pushed ahead with their own walking strategies. If you feed these words into Google you’ll come up with plans advanced by councils as various as Luton and Cheshire. Reading them is to stroll into a petrified forest of bureaucratic jargon, where a Sits (Sustainable Integrated Transport Strategy) sits on the rotten boughs of verbiage.

Meanwhile, the situation gets worse and worse: between the mid-1980s and 1990s walking declined as a proportion of journeys undertaken from 34 per cent to 27 per cent. Assuming — and I see no reason not to — a similar decline for the past decade, we have only one in five journeys being made on foot. It’s just as well that native habitats are declining and woodland being grubbed up, because on current projections no one will walk anywhere at all within 30 years.

Already the evolutionary consequences of our lack of ambulation are being seen: concrete evidence that the theories of Lamarck, for so long discredited, do indeed accurately describe the mechanisms of heritability. Three years ago in Stoke-on-Trent a child was born who, while perfectly healthy in every other respect, had a completely globular body covered with an epidermal layer of dense latex. “Roland X” — as the child is known — is now attending nursery school, and makes the half-mile journey there by car, after being “bounced into the back seat of the family Jeep” by his mother.

Roland is not the only sport: in Peebles there are now five-year-old twins who instead of feet have sets of double bogies curiously reminiscent of those found on shopping trolleys. The obstetrician who delivered them, Dr Finlay Quaye, told The Herald: “They’re in all respects happy, normal children, although they find it difficult to avoid being pushed about a bit in the playground.”

The apparently “natural” occurrence of wheeled or ball-shaped human beings has led to a disturbing new fad in radical elective surgery. Adults are having their feet and legs amputated and replaced with a variety of wheeled prosthetics, ranging from in-line skates to powered scooters. Hermione Forster of the Disability Alliance has described these people as “sadly deluded concerning the consequences of abandoning bipedalism. Once they discover just how parlous the facilities are for wheelchair access they often want to change back — but by then it’s too late.” Then there’s the Weil’s Disease epidemic raging in the Fens, as more and more teenagers have their legs sewn together and take to the waterways, rather than put up with the unutterable tedium of putting one foot in front of the other.

Obviously it’s high time the Government acted on this, and I’m pleased to see that they have: this year a communique was issued by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport pledging that by 2012 every man, woman and child in Britain will have been encouraged to increase the amount they walk by the staggering total of 1,000 paces per year. Moreover, walking is being trumpeted as one of the key legacies of London’s 2012 Olympic games, with a colossal £7m earmarked for encouraging people to put one foot in front of the other — that’s 12p for everyone!

Tessa Jowell has said: “It is no longer enough that we be seen to walk the walk, we must talk up the walk even if this requires cutting corns. We will be creating a new brand mark of excellence — the first in the world for pedestrians — to be called ‘The Golden Foot’. Walkways, paths, trails, woods, fields and even roads can all apply to display the Golden Foot together with jaunty stickers saying ‘I’m a Toe-Sucker’. The campaign will be launched by the Duchess of York at a mass rally in Birmingham city centre at which thousands of former couch potatoes will symbolically stamp to pieces their TV remotes. A new long-distance path, running 1,000 paces from Parliament to Downing Street will be opened by the greatest living human being, Nelson Mandela, and in his honour will be named ‘The Long March to Freedom’. Anyone who undertakes the path will be rewarded with a statue of Nelson Mandela in their home town.”

Stirring stuff, I think you’ll agree, but we’ve seen it all before: the grand vision, the will to change, the huge spend — and then it all ambles into the ground. No, I think that if the Government wants to get more people walking they’d be far better advised to deal with the real impediments: the snakes in the grass, the dodgy paving stones, disused mineshafts and chronic laziness.

To see Raph Steadman’s art work, go here

05.07.08

Will’s Latest Book

Will Self - Elaine
Will Self's latest book Elaine will be published in hardback by Grove on September 5 2024 in the UK and September 17 2024 in the USA.

You can pre-order at Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com

Will’s Previous Books

Will Self - Will
Will
More info
Amazon.co.uk

  Will Self - Phone
Phone
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
Shark
Shark
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
  Umbrella
Umbrella
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
The Unbearable Lightness Of Being A Prawn Cracker
The Unbearable Lightness Of Being A Prawn Cracker
More info
Amazon.co.uk
  Walking To Hollywood
Walking To Hollywood
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
The Butt
The Butt
More info Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
  Grey Area
Grey Area
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
Junk Mail
Junk Mail
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
  Great Apes
Great Apes
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
Cock And Bull
Cock And Bull
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
  The Quantity Theory Of Insanity
The Quantity Theory Of Insanity
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
The Sweet Smell Of Psychosis
The Sweet Smell of Psychosis
More info

Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
  My Idea Of Fun
My Idea Of Fun
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
The Book Of Dave
The Book Of Dave
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
  Psychogeography
Psychogeography
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
Psycho Too
Psycho II
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
  Liver
Liver
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
How The Dead Live
How The Dead Live
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
  Tough Tough Toys For Tough Tough Boys
Tough Tough Toys For Tough Tough Boys
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
Dr Mukti And Other Tales Of Woe
Dr Mukti And Other Tales Of Woe
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
  Dorian
Dorian
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
Feeding Frenzy
Feeding Frenzy
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
  Sore Sites
Sore Sites
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
Perfidious Man
Perfidious Man
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
  The Undivided Self
The Undivided Self
More info Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
Bloomsbury  
Penguin

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